Chronic diabetes affects millions of people in the EU

Almost 30 million people in the European Union (EU) report suffering from chronic diabetes. This represented 6.9% of the EU population aged 15 or over in 2014. No systematic difference can be observed between men and women.

However, the share of people reporting chronic diabetes clearly varies between age groups. The older the age group, the higher the share. 16.3% of people aged 65 to 74 in the EU reported chronic diabetes and almost a fifth (19.6%) of those aged 75 or over, while the figure was under 2% for age groups below 45.

The pattern is also clear for level of education: the proportion of diabetics in the EU falls as the educational level rises. Indeed, while the percentage of people reporting chronic diabetes reached 10.8% among those with a low educational level, it was almost half that (5.7%) for those with a medium level of education and was even lower, at 4.2%, among the highest-educated population.

Highest proportion of people reporting chronic diabetes in France

Among the EU Member States, less than 5% of the population aged 15 or over in 2014 reported chronic diabetes in Lithuania (4.4%), Denmark and Ireland (both 4.6%), Latvia (4.7%), Romania and Sweden (both 4.8%) as well as in Austria (4.9%).

At the opposite end of the spectrum, 1 in 10 people in France (10.0%) declared in 2014 that they suffered from chronic diabetes. France was followed by Portugal (9.3%) and Greece (9.2%).